THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING
TO DO IN ABERDEEN, but as winter approaches sometimes there’s nothing like turning up the heat, wrapping up in a warm blanket, and curling up with a good video. Aberdeen’s video stores offer a variety of choices, and here’s a look at the places, their collections, and the shopping experience.

    I intended to use a standard list of movies and see how many each store stocks. Taking a handful of films from numerous “best of” lists in various genres, I ended up with about 80 movies. About 60% were produced since 1980, and many were black and white, featuring, my children complained, “gray people.”  The point was not to rate the stores, but to try to define each place’s character. It seemed like a good idea, but it takes a long time to find 80 movies in a store, and I’m getting paid by the word, not by the hour. After one store visit, with list in hand, I switched to my gestalt meter, which is just as scientific.

    I considered identifying a movie character who represented the store’s character, but that seemed too esoteric. Instead, I chose an actor who seemed best qualified as a spokesperson for the store. Comment on this story to offer your own endorser endorsements.

Blockbuster
First, a general note about service. In all the stores, I received a friendly greeting when I entered—and then I was left blissfully alone to do my browsing on my own—the way it should be. Blockbuster greeted me with the corporate “Welcome to Blockbuster.” Blockbuster is, of course, big man on video campus. The $6 billion company has thousands of stores, and it didn’t get that big by stocking movies that rarely get rented. You’ll find just about any popular movie made in the last few years there. Likely several copies. I tracked how many copies of the current hot new release each store had, and at the time of my research, that was Mission: Impossible: 3. Blockbuster turned over an entire shelf unit to the Tom Cruise hit—more than 60 copies. Not surprisingly, the store probably offers the most used—er, previously viewed—videos. Still, while Blockbuster caters to people looking for the newest and hottest, you can find the occasional Sundance-style indies as well as a decent selection of recent classics.
Celebrity spokesperson: Hilary Duff - friendly, part of a chain (Disney) (top image)

Movie Gallery
Movie Gallery strikes me as the most hip store. It seemed to have the widest assortment of offbeat and/or independent films as well as the most foreign films. The latter were mostly recent films, however (except for a few martial arts imports, classic foreign films are simply hard to find in town), and it’s hard to see why some were translated. But in addition to recent popular movies, you’ll find a good collection and variety. Oddly, movies there were all gathered under only three categories: new release, gallery, and family & kids. On the positive side, you only have three places to look for the movie you want, but when you’re browsing, genres are helpful. Movie Gallery’s M:I:3 count was an impressive 36 copies. It has a large previously viewed section.
Celebrity spokesperson: Clive Owen - hip, foreign, cool

Northview
Northview is a pleasant place to shop — a girl-next-door kind of place. With plenty of room to survey the racks without bumping into other customers, it’s the least claustrophobic store. It may have the fewest videos for rent, because it doesn’t load up on multiple copies—it had only about six copies of M:I:3 and a single rack of used videos—but it still has a wide selection, including a good share of indies and a decent number of older quality movies. Northview helpfully organizes its movies into several categories and was the only store with a Classics section. It was fairly small, but it was nice someone recognized the concept.  Three cheers for Northview! Along with Videoland, the homegrown, non-chain video stores put a great local face on the video biz.
Celebrity spokesperson: Jennifer Anniston - girl next door, yada-yada (oops, wrong must-see show) (middle image)

Videoland
Videoland caused me to give up my movie list. The place is so overwhelming, I got dizzy when I walked in (and it’s not just the incense). Maybe a coffee at the drive-through cappuccino bar—the only store offering one—might have straightened me out. I think Videoland has just about every movie ever made in America—including the ones you regret seeing. I started comparing the collection to my list but was defeated by the alphabetically challenged organizational scheme. It has numerous sections, but organization within them is confusing. Look at one shelf in the Drama section: Leaving Las Vegas, Richard III, Sense and Sensibility, Dead Man Walking, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Nixon, Before and After, Carried Away, and Twister. It was like a pre-Algebra test with a list of numbers in which you had to find a pattern. All of the movies on my list might be at Videoland, but my head was swimming (just what is that incense there?) even before I got out of the enormous Horror section, which even includes a remake of The Blob! Only God knows why someone remade The Blob, but I’m not surprised Videoland has it. The store also has very large Western and Children’s/Disney sections (including those Disney animations A-List’s parents saw when they were young). Warning: Many of the videos are VHS tapes, which won’t fit in your DVD drive. I know Videoland had copies of M:I:3 because it was on the TV when I visited, but only a handful. The store has a small used movie selection.
Celebrity spokesperson: Jack Black- 'nuff said (bottom image)